How To Eat More Vegetables Without Even Trying

Swap them in.Start with comfort foods you already like: replace some ground beef in your burger with chopped beets (high in folate, manganese, potassium) or mushrooms (rich in niacin, copper, potassium, zinc, selenium, and B vitamins). Make veggie nuggets from The Weelicious Cookbook out of potato, carrot, and corn. Or go shopping: Brands like Veggie Patch offer spinach nuggets or broccoli bites with cheese and Amy’s products include vegetable-loaded burritos, pizzas, burgers, and many more satisfying staples.

Blend them in.Do like desperate moms and blend red and orange vegetables with a little water, then eat them in your pasta sauce, nacho cheese dip, even French toast batter. Other ideas to try: The Sneaky Chef author Missy Lapine’s green purée goes down easy in meatloaf, meatballs, chicken parm, ravioli—even guacamole. Nutritionist Rania Batayneh, author of The One One One Diet, swaps butternut squash for as much as half the cheese in recipes like quesadillas, grilled cheese, and macaroni and cheese.

Spread them on.Pass on the butter and top your toast with a sweet potato spread from bloggers at The Gentle Home. You can also mash avocados with sea salt for a treat that’s rich in monounsaturated fat and full of fiber, potassium, and vitamin C.

Hash them out.Flip the potato-heavy ratio of your usual recipe to favor more colorful vegetables. Go beyond peppers and onions to experiment with carrots, zucchini, and leeks like the bloggers at Dinner on the Cheap in these vegetable hashbrowns. Other ideas: add wilted greens like chard, kale, spinach, or beet greens, mix in cooked chopped broccoli or cauliflower, or grate in raw sweet potato, beets, cabbage, or kohlrabi.